Wednesday, 27 July 2011

'Hysterical' Cameron goes native

David Cameron was therefore wrong to leap forward and order "a review of the far right", or of the far anything. The hysteria of the moment may require a knee jerk from those in power, but why the national security council was summoned, or "a review of our security at home" needed, is a mystery. To the victims, the killings were an act of random madness, a terrible accident, a car crash, a catastrophe out of the blue. To seek normality in their abnormality only gives them currency, and probably spurious meaning.

But Cameron's reaction was more than merely hysterical. Together with the government's reneging on its pledge to ditch the DNA records of the innocent, the Bowdlerisation of the Localism Bill to leave practically nothing worth having, the debacle in Libya, his poor judgement on Coulson, the pusillanimous mess of the Public Services White Paper and a clutch of other failures, this was the latest indicator that Cameron has gone native. He's always been a lazy man, only motivated to reaction at the last moment, and appears to have allowed Whitehall to run the roost in exchange for an easy life. And Whitehall has led him into the usual mess of error, cock-up and confusion that uniquely brands the inadequate under-performance of the wartime Central State we have.

The old Cameron of brave words and loud principles would not allow the civil servants at the MOD to spend £1bn on credit cards and then refuse to disclose what they had spent it on. That Cameron would not spinelessly give way to senior police officers - themselves mired in an endemic and institutional corruption - on matters of civil liberty. But that Cameron has gone, to be replaced by an indolent man smug in the trappings of office and looking to the Mandarins to help him secure a second term. He's lost contact with the zeitgeist, as all but the most capable of PMs do, shielded from the real world by the make-believe stage set erected around him by Whitehall, the Mandarins willingly feeding his delusions.

No Conservative can look to Cameron for any hope of leadership any longer. He's in hock to Europe, in thrall to Whitehall and in cahoots with a hollow Party HQ utterly alienated from the grass roots of conservatism, inward-looking, metropolitan and exclusive. It's time to scrub through his name and write him off.

As far as your final paragraph is concerned, many of us reached that conclusion before the General Election. All the signs were there and he has fulfilled all the 'promise' he had - which is none.

I am not 'anti toff' but the fact is his privileged, sheltered upbringing and his minimal experience of anything outside of politics hasn't equipped him to do the job. But it isn't just him; few of our politicians have any real experience of the reality of living in Britain today.

We desperately need MPs who have a substantial amount of real-life experience before they enter Parliament. We need to get rid of the career politicians; how we do that goodness only knows when the party machines control the selection process, but that is what is needed.

The only thing that will save Cameron is the fact that Deadwood will be 5 times worse.

Ah, you've noticed...Cameroon is (almost) as bad as Anthony Eden in wrecking the country.

Gallovidian is correct.

We need some sort of political movement that is socially libertarian, with fairly low, but progressive taxation, strong defences, and exit from the EU.

And, incidentally, who point-blank refuses to have anything AT ALL to do with the lies and corruption of organised religion, of any sort.Religion is a private matter, and politicians should not meet with or even speak to any religious leader - that way lie societies like Ireland and Saudi Arabia.

Good post, R, but it does surprise me a bit that it's taken you so long to come to this conclusion.

For some of us, the breaking of the "cast-iron" promise was the turning point. For most, the fact that this man couldn't win an election cleanly even when up against the worst outgoing PM ever, was pretty decisive.

He is not, and never has been, a conservative; he's just a vacuous pro-EU nonentity, serving his sad little turn in the continuous degrading and surrender that passes for politics in the UK.

He is not a man, he is a sad little boy who chooses his friends not wisely.He never grew up.

He is an EU placeman, they [the EU commissarars] do not require self made men with radical views and opinions, still less - a man of the British people - Cameron is 'deadwood' is Cameron is Clegg - plastic politico's all of them.Anyone who votes for the Lib/lab/Con is braindead too.

Is there a leader anywhere? I despair of Farage, nice bloke - not up to job.I look back to the Victorian era and think - can they really have been our forbears?We sit about, waiting for a leader, a man of substance and worth his salt and remain waiting.The EU and 40 years of Cultural Marxism has done it's work, though Crossland started the real canker.

We are a backwater and are becoming a third class nation with nothing to give anymore seemingly. However, this could be turned around yet...BUT! - first we have to withdraw from the serfdom of the EU.We abide in hope, maybe not, in expectation.

Simon Jenkin's piece is notable for highlighting another issue which is pertinent to us.

The telling part - that I wasn't aware of was that reform of the Norwegian political system seems to have been stalled since the "state of the nation" report he alludes to was delivered (2004) - note the timing alongside Breivik's bonkers trajectory. It's the kind of analysis (the report) that restores my faith in people. It remains to be seen if the political parties can have their fingers prised off the subsidies and constipation of PR eased....hopefully moving the implementation of government moved away from ideology to practicality.

Good luck with that Norway.

Cameron and his motley crew are floundering - that much is obvious - where the path ahead lies - that isn't clear at all without a comprehensive clearout of the stables...

This is where I disagree with you. Cameron never was in touch with the zeitgeist.

What he had in his favor, was a Tory party that had largely lost its way, viz whatsherface 'nasty party comment', one that was and is a festering dung heap of infiltrators and traitors, Kenneth Clarke, Francis Maude for instance and the idea that Blair was going to go on for ever simply scared the wits out of the tory party.

On the strength of one speech hyped [by the BBC ] in the same way that voicemail hacking scandal has been hyped by the BBC, a dispirited Tory rank and file voted for the wrong candidate.

Now the media are thinking about deserting Cameron. Can't come too soon!

But it does illustrate the absolute foolishness of choosing who leads your party on the basis of what his poll ratings happen to be today.

What we are seeing is the product of a party electing as its leader a man who is devoid of principle and whose only passion is achieving power for its own sake.

Cameron is running the Conservative party into the ground with his social democratic posturing. Hopefully it is only a matter of time before a truly conservative entity rises from the ashes he will leave behind.

The Cast Iron promise was a huge mistake. Tory apologists say it was Labour who forced through the Lisbon Treaty and it wasn't actually a promise, or was to cover a particular set of circumstances, blah blah.

Cameron knew what construction was being placed on his statements and knew that if the Lisbon Treaty were ratified he would do nothing about it. Belief in the Cast Iron Promise was not discouraged to keep up momentum for the Euro elections.

It would have been far better to spell his intentions out, if the Lisbon Treaty were ratified by the time he came to office, he would do nothing. People may not have liked his position but it would have been honest and they could have accepted it. Conning folks, or allowing them do con themselves, for a momentary advantage was really silly as well as crooked. It showed the measure of the man - not much there.

Cameron is simply an empty suit. Devoid of principles, he has no thought out positions and all we can expect are a series of gestures which he thinks will make life easy for him or make him look good. Expect any silly, poorly thought through gesture from him.

However, it's a bit too easy to concentrate on Cameron. The other bozos on offer, LibDem and Labour are as the same or worse.

If it was down to me a prospective MP must;1)Have lived and worked in the constituency they wish to represent for at least 10 years.2)Never worked for or been a member of any political party,quango,think tank,lobby group or tax payer funded charity.3)Voters must have a mechanism to be able to force by-elections if they feel their MPs are failing to properly represent them.4)No MPs under 40 years old.we need people with real life experience not trendy ideas.5)MPs must retire at ordinary retirement age.

Its time to get rid of the time serving placemen and party sheep who "baahhh" on command and put the running of the country back into the hands of people who have lived in the real world and are aware of and can understand and empathise with how the ordinary folk feel about the issues of the day.